Liu Haitao, Director General of the Department of Frontier Inspection and Management of the People's Republic of China National Immigration Administration (NIA), said in a media conference in December 2021:
"...Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we have always insisted on the policy of not leaving the country for non-essential or non-emergency reasons, and have reduced the cross-border movement of people for non-essential reasons such as tourism...NIA will actively facilitate the processing of entry-exit documents and inspection for Chinese citizens who are going abroad for academic, employment or business purposes, especially those who need to exit for global pandemic prevention and control efforts and business resumption..."
Unfortunately for tourism destinations and businesses outside mainland China, little has changed since then to increase outbound leisure travel from China.
- In May 2022, NIA announced that it will stringently restrict Chinese citizens from traveling abroad for non-essential reasons, as China further expands its 'zero-COVID' policy.
- In March 2022, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism reiterated a ban on sale by Chinese travel agents of outbound group and package tours that was initially instituted in January 2020.
- In September 2021, the Civil Aviation Authority of China reminded Chinese citizens that they should not leave the country for any non-essential reason.
- In February 2022, the NIA confirmed the continuation of suspension of passport renewals for leisure travel that was initially announced in August 2021.
The one hopeful note from an official Chinese government source is the release in January 2022 of a projection by the China Tourism Academy of 20% growth of both inbound and outbound tourism in 2022, which would represent a recovery to 20% of 2019 level.
China was the #1 global outbound tourism country market in 2019.
Is it now too late in 2022 to realize any significant recovery of outbound tourism from China this year? Watch this space,
